In failure analysis of semiconductor integrated circuits, conventionally available semiconductor inspection apparatuses for acquiring an observed image include emission microscopes, OBIRCH apparatuses, and time-resolved emission microscopes. These inspection apparatuses are able to analyze such a failure as a broken part in a semiconductor integrated circuit by use of an image acquired as a failure observed image.
Patent Document 1 describes a semiconductor failure analysis method for analyzing a failure of a semiconductor device, using an observed image thereof, failure analysis apparatus, and failure analysis program. The method includes an inspection information acquiring step of acquiring a failure observed image containing reaction information arising from a failure, acquired by conducting an inspection about the failure, as an observed image of the semiconductor device; and a layout information acquiring step of acquiring layout information of the semiconductor device. The method further includes a region setting step of setting an analysis region in correspondence to the reaction information with reference to the failure observed image; a net information analyzing step of extracting a net passing the analysis region, from a plurality of nets included in a layout of the semiconductor device; and an information displaying step of letting display means display information about a result of the analysis of the failure of the semiconductor device obtained by the region setting step and the net information analyzing step. The analysis region is set wider than the reaction regions in the failure observed image, in consideration of positional accuracy of the stage on which the semiconductor device is mounted during inspection (Paragraph 0035 of Patent document 1). The position alignment between the observed image and the layout image is performed by designating three points in the observed image and three corresponding points in the layout image, and effecting position adjustment from coordinates of these points. The position alignment may be performed by designating four or more points as necessary (Paragraph 0078). Further, Patent Document 1 mentions that operation buttons for manually carrying out fine adjustments of position alignment such as rotating the pattern image, and positioning and zooming the layout image are provided (Paragraph 0080).